Or…How to Improve Our Quality of Life and Get Maximum Leverage from Limited Public Resources by Integrating Complementary Aspects of Policy & Programs in Transportation, Health, Development, Environment, Energy – and everything else!

I was once one of those people who joined in the American chorus of contempt about the inefficiency and incompetence of public programs.  Until I began working in the private sector.  I quickly learned that the dearth of really good managers, the culture of petty bickering and buck-passing, the incredible lack of inter-departmental coordination and inter-subsidiary synergy was just as common in business as it was in government – if not worse because it was hidden from public view behind the narrow window of bottom line results.  So long as the ink was black, internal corporate operations could get away with utterly amazing amounts of wastefulness, nastiness, short-sightedness, and bungling – often because the competition was doing the same!

But times have changed.  We now need to rethink the way we do business or run public programs.  We need to foster a new kind of leadership, one that uses resources to catalyze and shape broad coalitions rather than go it alone.  And it is likely that public health, with its history of concern for the built environment and population-wide campaigns, might be the right base from which to make this happen – in transportation, land use, energy, environment, and community development. Continue Reading »

It’s winter in Boston – cold, windy, occasional snow.  And yet every time I go out I see people bicycling.  They weren’t here ten years ago; or even five – certainly not in the winter!  It suddenly feels like we’ve reach an inflection point:  there are enough people who use cycling as a major form of transportation that it’s become a year-round presence.

The US Census Bureau agrees.  Their 2008 American Community Survey found that the share of bicycle commuters nationally increased 43 percent since 2000.  In supportive environments it grew even more:  the 27 large cities recognized as Bike Friendly by the League of American Bicyclists had increases nearly 60 percent larger than the national average.  (http://www.bikeleague.org/resource/reports)

There are lots of reasons for this upsurge but in these fiscally tight times it’s illuminating to particularly analyze the dollars and sense aspects.  It turns out that bicycling is a good deal for both the cyclist and the city. Continue Reading »

For the past half century, Congress creates a new national transportation funding bill every six years or so.  Originally, the primary role of the Highway Trust Fund was to send federal gas tax money to the states to subsidize construction of the Interstate Highway System and other roads.  Over time, as national priorities have changed, the bill has authorized the Fund to cautiously include other modes (railroads, transit, bikeways, and walking paths) and a broader perspective (reducing traffic-related air pollution and safety).  The most recent six year cycle ended in 2009, and the next Transportation Funding Bill – now being debated – will not only shape how we travel but also the nature of our communities, the cleanliness of our environment, our level of daily physical activity, and much more.  All of us have a stake in the outcome. Continue Reading »

The public sector can certainly benefit from the adoption of many business practices, from a focus on customer service to more efficient work flow, from TQM to greater transparency.  But no matter how important these practices may be, no matter how much the public sector can benefit from their use, there is a fundamental difference between the two sectors that will perpetually lead to differences: the public sector rests on a foundation of democracy while private organizations do not.  This plays itself out in at least five ways: government’s requirement to serve everyone, government’s requirement to fulfill its entire mandate, the multiple and sometimes competing dimensions that defines quality in public programs, the complicated way public revenues are generated, and the population-wide ownership of the public sector.

Continue Reading »

No matter what our concern, each of us has a stake in having government operate effectively and accountably, respecting legal rights while being creative and fast-acting enough to deal with public issues.

Some people say this means that government should be run like a business.  But government is not business.  Its bottom line is much more complicated than profit, its operations are subject to many more constraints, and it operates with far more public scrutiny than any firm could endure.  (For more on the differences, see the associated posting “Why the Public Sector – Schools in Particular – Can’t Be Run “Like A Business.”)  But there are a lot of business methods that the public sector can adapt to its own unique circumstances and use – needs to use – if it is to do its job.  Here are comments about a few of them – measuring performance, involving the public, outsourcing, and technology. Continue Reading »

Imagine that you wanted to invent a better public mass transit system.  Like a railroad it would run on an exclusive right-of-way, have weather-protected stations where people with already-bought tickets could wait, and multiple cars with comfortable accommodations.  Like a subway, each car would have lots of doors so that large numbers of people, standing or in wheelchairs, could quickly get on and off from a platform that is level with the doors.  Electronic signposts at every station would display the waiting time before the next pickup. Like a bus it would change its route and stopping locations as changing need requires.  It would be clean and safe and fast and high-status enough to attract both rich and poor.  It wouldn’t cost nearly as much nor take nearly as long to build as rail.  And it would work best where traffic congestion is worst.  Pretty good, right?

What you want to invent already exists.  It’s called Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT.  I’m not talking about Boston’s Silver Line – which is no more BRT than Amtrak’s Acela is a true high-speed rail line.  Both use a label that they don’t deserve to cover up their basic failures.  They are a sad reminder that the most powerful way to undermine a good idea is with a bad first example.  But true BRT already exists in a few cities in this country and many more around the world.  We in the Boston area need to erase our negative impressions, start again learning about BRT as if the state hadn’t already spoiled the concept.  In fact, there are several places in our own region that could be well served by such a system. Continue Reading »

Republicans are claiming that Scott Brown’s election was an affirmation of their conservative ideology.  But it is unlikely that the majority of Massachusetts voters have so radically changed their values and views.  It is more likely that his election was the result of two other dynamics — the capture of the election process by our reality-show celebrity culture and the widespread anger about the mess that national elites have made of our society.  Both have implications for advocates. Continue Reading »

A couple months ago Bikes Not Bombs both celebrated its 25^th anniversary and announced that the last of the founding organizers, Carl Kurtz, was leaving.  But its core mission of international anti-war solidarity combined with local bicycle and youth services remains.  Still based in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, BNB is now being run by the next generation — people who have grown up with the organization, or connected through the international network of local bike shops that BNB continues to support, or who were attracted by BNB’s combination of political vision and pragmatic services.

It is of enormous credit to the entire BNB community that the organization has lasted this long.  And it’s of equal credit to Carl that he has been such a steadfast leader and worker for the entire time.  Listening to the speeches, and reflecting on what I know about the organization, helped remind me of what it takes to create sustainable change from the bottom up.  The simplicity of the words hides the enormous skill and art of making them happen:  compelling vision, optimistic faith, coherent mission, operational efficiency, good leadership, and luck. Continue Reading »

Why don’t more people just leave their cars at home?  Why do so many people eat such terrible food?  I am frequently in conversations where someone asks these types of questions.  Sometimes the speaker is just a snob, using the question to really announce their own sense of superiority.  But sometimes it’s a sincere bewilderment.  Why do people make choices that end up hurting not only themselves but our society in the long run?  And how can we get them to change? Continue Reading »

(This is the full text and title of a letter that appeared in the Boston Globe on 1/10/10)

We all hate bureaucracy – big, rule-based, inflexible.  But the impersonal efficiency of bureaucracy is exactly what big organizations need to run effectively.  So the James Michael Curley legacy that is most damaging to today’s Boston is not the corruption or ethnic-neighborhood chauvinism or even the patronage described by Peter Canellos (“Curley’s People”, Jan.1, Ideas), but the pattern of delivering public service entirely on the basis of personal relationships.  If you want something done, you have to know someone who works in city hall.  Even within City Hall, inter-office coordination is more about calling your cousin than oiling a functional machine.

In contrast, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg sits on top of a corporate-style bureaucracy.  This allows him to express a vision, set policy direction, even get personally involved in starting particular projects – and then turn things over to his staff to implement.  Like a progressive private sector CEO, Bloomberg understands that today’s technology allows policy and oversight to be centralized, middle-management to be thinned, and front-line staff empowered to take creative initiative.  Of course, it doesn’t always work as well as desired, either in the private or public sectors.  But the cultural norms aim towards that mode of operation.

In Boston, Mayor Menino is full of energy, ideas, and deep commitment.  The goals laid out in his latest inaugural address are worthy and important.  But he can’t do everything or be everywhere — once the spotlight of his attention passes and key staff have to move on to other projects, implementation of his visions often falters.  There are many smart, well-meaning, capable public servants in Boston.  But their ability to act is too often swallowed by the traditional culture of personal connections.

So all of us who deeply care about Boston welcome the new Chief of Staff, Mitchell Weiss (“He’s bringing Boston fresh attitude”, Jan.3).  And, despite our dislike of the word, some of us hope that his main focus will be on creating an efficient, public service bureaucracy.